The New York Times (NYT) reported that Russia reaffirmed its 2021 security guarantee requests and even added to them during last week’s trilateral talks with the US and Ukraine. Readers can review the original requests here and here, which were collectively analyzed here over the summer as the last chance to restore Ukraine’s full independence in retrospect. The most important part concerns the withdrawal of pre-1997 NATO members’ forces from post-1997 members’ territories. The new requests complement it.
According to the NYT, these include ending the supply of all Western military equipment of any nature to Ukraine, prohibiting Ukraine from participating in the EU’s common defense policy if it ever joins, and France and the UK committing not to place anyone else under their nuclear umbrellas. All of these positions align with Russia’s national security interests as its leadership truly understands them to be, but the odds of all these requests being fulfilled are close to nil, thus making them a negotiating tactic.
The purpose of reaffirming its maximalist position towards the European security architecture and adding the three complementary requests above isn’t to behave obstinately and obstruct peace. Rather, it’s to inspire creative diplomatic solutions that can result in the most realistic mutual compromises for resolving the NATO-Russian security dilemma. The general parameters could take the form that was suggested here in late October, the two main parts of which will be republished below for convenience:
“The countries between Germany and Russia that are collectively known as the Intermarium will play the most significant role in [NATO 3.0’s containment of Russia). The center of military-security gravity would then become the Baltic over which the Swedish-led Viking Bloc and Poland will exert joint military patronage over its eastern reaches (Finland and the Baltic States). The US and the E3 (Britain, France, and Germany) will “Lead From Behind” by optimizing the ‘military Schengen’.
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Possibly apart from the US, France and the UK would also have to commit in writing not to extend their nuclear umbrellas over the bloc’s post-1997 members. That said, Intermarium countries (except Viking Bloc member Norway, which is a founding NATO member) could deploy as many of their troops and equipment to one another’s territory as they’d like, which would be a significant compromise by Russia given the Viking Bloc’s rapid aerial build-up and Poland commanding E-NATO’s largest army.”
As was explained here and here, the US must have the political will to coerce Europe and Ukraine into compliance, the latter of which is expected by Putin per his latest public remarks to Witkoff and Kushner as analyzed here to restore its minorities’ rights in exchange for implied compromises on their border. If successful, then mutual military pullbacks from NATO’s frontiers with Russia and allied Belarus could follow in parallel with the restoration of crisis-control channels and the resumption of arms control talks.
The resource-centric strategic partnership that Russia and the US are negotiating “would give Washington tangible, financial, and strategic stakes in preserving the post-war order amidst whatever provocations Ukraine, the UK, and/or whoever else might stage for ruining it” per the earlier analysis. Readers can learn more about it here, here, and here. Putin revealed last November that he agreed to unspecified compromises at Anchorage, so all that Trump has to do is implement his side of the deal.
That’s easier said than done, of course, but it’s not implausible. As explained here, he’s now more serious about this than ever because “The 2023 Counteroffensive’s Spiritual Successor Was A Failure; Trump Feels Challenged To Assert Himself As The Alpha Vis-à-vis Zelensky; The Global Energy Crisis Makes Everything All The More Urgent; The Post-Midterm Reality Is Another Motivating Factor; and China’s Superpower Trajectory Will Soon Become Irreversible”. It’s therefore up to him what’ll happen.
